0001 ==============================================================
0002 Alsa driver for Digigram miXart8 and miXart8AES/EBU soundcards
0003 ==============================================================
0004
0005 Digigram <alsa@digigram.com>
0006
0007
0008 GENERAL
0009 =======
0010
0011 The miXart8 is a multichannel audio processing and mixing soundcard
0012 that has 4 stereo audio inputs and 4 stereo audio outputs.
0013 The miXart8AES/EBU is the same with a add-on card that offers further
0014 4 digital stereo audio inputs and outputs.
0015 Furthermore the add-on card offers external clock synchronisation
0016 (AES/EBU, Word Clock, Time Code and Video Synchro)
0017
0018 The mainboard has a PowerPC that offers onboard mpeg encoding and
0019 decoding, samplerate conversions and various effects.
0020
0021 The driver don't work properly at all until the certain firmwares
0022 are loaded, i.e. no PCM nor mixer devices will appear.
0023 Use the mixartloader that can be found in the alsa-tools package.
0024
0025
0026 VERSION 0.1.0
0027 =============
0028
0029 One miXart8 board will be represented as 4 alsa cards, each with 1
0030 stereo analog capture 'pcm0c' and 1 stereo analog playback 'pcm0p' device.
0031 With a miXart8AES/EBU there is in addition 1 stereo digital input
0032 'pcm1c' and 1 stereo digital output 'pcm1p' per card.
0033
0034 Formats
0035 -------
0036 U8, S16_LE, S16_BE, S24_3LE, S24_3BE, FLOAT_LE, FLOAT_BE
0037 Sample rates : 8000 - 48000 Hz continuously
0038
0039 Playback
0040 --------
0041 For instance the playback devices are configured to have max. 4
0042 substreams performing hardware mixing. This could be changed to a
0043 maximum of 24 substreams if wished.
0044 Mono files will be played on the left and right channel. Each channel
0045 can be muted for each stream to use 8 analog/digital outputs separately.
0046
0047 Capture
0048 -------
0049 There is one substream per capture device. For instance only stereo
0050 formats are supported.
0051
0052 Mixer
0053 -----
0054 <Master> and <Master Capture>
0055 analog volume control of playback and capture PCM.
0056 <PCM 0-3> and <PCM Capture>
0057 digital volume control of each analog substream.
0058 <AES 0-3> and <AES Capture>
0059 digital volume control of each AES/EBU substream.
0060 <Monitoring>
0061 Loopback from 'pcm0c' to 'pcm0p' with digital volume
0062 and mute control.
0063
0064 Rem : for best audio quality try to keep a 0 attenuation on the PCM
0065 and AES volume controls which is set by 219 in the range from 0 to 255
0066 (about 86% with alsamixer)
0067
0068
0069 NOT YET IMPLEMENTED
0070 ===================
0071
0072 - external clock support (AES/EBU, Word Clock, Time Code, Video Sync)
0073 - MPEG audio formats
0074 - mono record
0075 - on-board effects and samplerate conversions
0076 - linked streams
0077
0078
0079 FIRMWARE
0080 ========
0081
0082 [As of 2.6.11, the firmware can be loaded automatically with hotplug
0083 when CONFIG_FW_LOADER is set. The mixartloader is necessary only
0084 for older versions or when you build the driver into kernel.]
0085
0086 For loading the firmware automatically after the module is loaded, use a
0087 install command. For example, add the following entry to
0088 /etc/modprobe.d/mixart.conf for miXart driver:
0089 ::
0090
0091 install snd-mixart /sbin/modprobe --first-time -i snd-mixart && \
0092 /usr/bin/mixartloader
0093
0094
0095 (for 2.2/2.4 kernels, add "post-install snd-mixart /usr/bin/vxloader" to
0096 /etc/modules.conf, instead.)
0097
0098 The firmware binaries are installed on /usr/share/alsa/firmware
0099 (or /usr/local/share/alsa/firmware, depending to the prefix option of
0100 configure). There will be a miXart.conf file, which define the dsp image
0101 files.
0102
0103 The firmware files are copyright by Digigram SA
0104
0105
0106 COPYRIGHT
0107 =========
0108
0109 Copyright (c) 2003 Digigram SA <alsa@digigram.com>
0110 Distributable under GPL.
